Travels in Brazil. Archduchess Leopoldina’s Honeymoon to Rio de Janeiro
Book presentation with Robert Wagner. An event as part of the series Wer A… sagt of the Academy Library in collaboration with the Academy’s Graphic Collection.
Inv. no. HZ-13.824, Graphic Collection of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
Brazil in the year 1817. Austrian Archduchess Leopoldina marries Pedro, Crown Prince of Portugal, in Rio de Janeiro. Against all expectations, the Crown Prince and the Princess stay in Brazil and put themselves at the head of the independence movement. Five years later, Dom Pedro is acclaimed the first Emperor of Brazil. A scientific expedition is sent to Brazil at the same time. The explorers travel adventurous paths and report on gold and diamond miners, the slaves’ life, and the indigenous peoples’ defensive struggle.
Johann Natterer stays in Brazil for eighteen years and marries a Brazilian woman of indigenous descent on the banks of the Rio Negro; Johann Emanuel Pohl returns to Vienna with two Botocudos in tow who soon become “the attraction” at balls and in theatres; Dominik Sochor dies of a fever in the swamps of the Pantanal; and the Bavarian explorers Johann Baptist Spix and Carl Friedrich Philipp Martius explore the Amazon to the outermost borders of Brazil. The artist Thomas Ender paints many wonderful watercolors on his journey. The flower painter Johann Buchberger is brought to Europe seriously injured and dies soon after. Diplomats are entrusted with unusual tasks at a time when Brazil becomes Latin America’s largest independent country.
Robert Wagner , historian, head of the University Library and the Graphic Collection of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna from 1982 to 2004. The latter holds 763 watercolors and drawings by Thomas Ender, which the young landscape painter made during the Austrian expedition to Brazil between July 14, 1817 and June 1, 1818. Three exhibitions curated by the author were dedicated to this treasure: at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 1994 and at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo and the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes in Rio de Janeiro in 1997.
As Ender expert, Robert Wagner accompanied the exhibition project The Brazilian Expedition of Thomas Ender—Reconsidered , directed by Mark Dion, with students from Vienna and São Paulo, which was presented at the 26th São Paulo Biennial in September 2004 and subsequently shown in Vienna.
Robert Wagner
Brasilianische Reisen (Travels in Brazil)
Die Hochzeitsreise der Erzherzogin Leopoldine nach Rio de Janeiro (Archduchess Leopoldina’s Honeymoon to Rio de Janeiro)
Forscher, Künstler, Diplomaten und der erste Kaiser von Brasilien (Explorers, Diplomats, and the First Emperor of Brazil)
Hardcover, 464 pages, numerous color ills., ISBN 978-3-99028-927-3, Verlag Bibliothek der Provinz , Weitra, 34 euros
Following the book presentation, there will be an opportunity to view selected Brazil drawings by Thomas Ender in the study room of the Graphic Collection.
Limited number of participants, registration required under: r.lackner@akbild.ac.at .
The event is fully booked.
Please comply with the 2.5G rule and the FFP2 mask requirement. More information on the protective measures in place at the Academy can be found here: COVID-19 Guidelines .